Is Malaysia Ready for The Era of E-Government?

Recently I am into this yachting hobby and currently seeking high and low for all the relevant information for boat registration and to find out on its relevant regulations before I approach the boat dealer.

I logged onto Ministry of Transport’s and Jabatan Laut Malaysia’s website and to my surprise, Jabatan Laut Malaysia still put our ex Minister of Transport, Y. B. Dato' Sri Chan Kong Choy as the current Minister of Transport. (http://www.marine.gov.my/indexeng.html)

On top of that, I am also looking for information on how to register a 22 footer leisure yacht but again, it returned no results as the information provided on the website either they are not properly clustered or simply the information provided on the website is not meant for private boaters.

Instead, a bunch of information like client’s charter, which depicts how well the agency is serving its “clients” and organization chart that do not lead to any harvesting of useful information can be seen at almost every corner of the page.

And the best part of this MOT website is, there is a link says “Letter to Editor” (http://www.mot.gov.my/index.php?option=com_content&task=category&sectionid=22&id=64&Itemid=180). I was wondering am I surfing a car magazine website or what?

I decided to close my browser and drive down to Port Dickson to see the marine clubhouse representative to find out more.

My conclusion, Malaysia government on one hand, promoting the concept of e-government but on another hand, they were too busy with by-elections and fighting for controlling power and seats in the parliament.

I just hope that the Malaysian government can wake up, learn from our neighboring countries, not blaming and accusing, and subsequently make good use of taxpayers hard-earned money on multiple aspects, be it governmental agencies or public welfare, to truly realize the concept of e-government.